Theater Group Explores NRI Ennui in Debut Film

By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN, Special to India-West

Life in the Silicon Valley seems like the promised El Dorado for an overachieving Indian engineer immigrant - the crowning culmination of a hardy academic life in the demanding top Indian schools. It`s now a magic world of leafy suburban homes and luxury cars, stock options and the accoutrements of a consumerist society. But is it as good as it sounds? One Indian has decided to take a closer look and examine the notion with a wry eye, and come up with a quirky yet poignant commentary. 

Meet Sujit Saraf, key activist for the Bay Area-based theater group Naatak, which has six excellent theater productions to its credit. An IIT Delhi graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, Saraf has an insider`s view of the successful expatriate IT professional`s life. 

He decided not only to take a close look, but also tell the story in a film. "Bugaboo," his film, is now ready to premiere, and it`s an affecting story about some young lost NRI engineers mired in ennui. 

"I guess it`s about the predictability of our lives in the Silicon Valley," Saraf told India-West. "We are all what you might call normal successful professionals, and I don`t think we have much to complain about. 

"So a group of engineers begin to wonder if this is in fact quite dull and if it wouldn`t be more interesting if a few unpredictable events could be introduced to life." 

Saraf, a 30-year old engineer who has gone back to India to join the faculty in IIT Kanpur, has a quirky, self-deprecating take on the life of the successful Indian engineer. 

"We were all reasonably bright," he reminisced. "But the primary reason of our success was a lot of hard work, and listening to the advice of our mothers: Drinking up our milk in time, getting up in the morning and studying hard. 

"At the end of it all we have what may be considered a model life, and that is when we begin to wonder if it was worth being good boys. 

"So the movie is about good boys - good geeks, sort of - who, for the first time in their lives, become a little bad, break a few rules, and do things their mothers would not approve of." 

How the film got made is as fascinating as the story the film tells. To begin with, there were no producers. Saraf approached someone, who tentatively agreed to finance the film. But he got worried with the film`s unconventional take. "He basically wanted a film with a man and a woman who meet," Saraf added mischieviously. 

So Saraf and a few friends raised the money, which was on a shoe-string $21,000 - yes, that is indeed the budget. They rented cheap equipment from the San Francisco-based Film Arts Foundation, shot it with a 16 mm camera instead of the standard and doubly expensive 35 mm, and in six weekends - the volunteer artists who worked pro bono all, sensibly enough, had day jobs - shot the entire film. 

"In equipment we were lucky that something like the Film Arts Foundation exists, and in people we are lucky that Naatak exists," Saraf said. 

Their other lucky break was getting in touch with Tony Sehgal, a graduate of Stanford`s film and video production, who was the cinematographer for the film, because Saraf, although an able director of theater, had underestimated the difference between film and theater. Sehgal helped him understand the basics. 

"A play is a collection of scenes, while a movie is a collection of shots," Saraf said. "In a play what you see is what you get. Whereas in a film what you shoot is not what you get. You can fool around with your shots in many ways, you can rearrange the shots." Saraf and his band of loyal Naatak associates made a 17-minute pilot that helped him understand the technical challenges. Real crunch time came in post production, Sehgal recalls. 

"There was a big decision to be made whether we should edit the traditional way, which is a very mechanical method of actually turning your negative into a positive image. You sit in an editing room and literally, physically cut your work print," Sehgal said. "You are manually cutting it, you have film on the wall, little bit on reels, and it is very challenging to stay organized because you have this material all over the place, hundreds and hundreds of feet of it - it`s a logistical organizational nightmare." 

So it was decided to do it on a computer, but that was very expensive, so they got a new "plug-in" program, which was cheaper. Rather than taking the negative and making a positive in a lab, the film was converted directly into video. "We never made this physical positive film," Sehgal said. "When it was made into video we were able to digitize it into the computer. So rather than having film physically all over the room on walls and reels, we had it on the hard drive and we played with it there ... sound, picture, everything." 

It was two months before any editing could be done, because the new program still had a lot of bugs. The program had to keep track of every foot of film, because after the editing, the exact points had to be sent to an editor in the East Coast who did the actual cutting and pasting of the negative. An accompanying video was sent in as a visual reference point. 

The final 16 mm print is now ready, the result of dedicated, grueling work by Naatak volunteers like Lalitha Rajagopalan, Rajagopalan, who was involved in making sets for Naatak - "I basically like building things and playing with power tools," she said with a laugh - used to drive every Friday to the Film Arts Foundation, and carry all the paraphernalia of rented film equipment in her trusty Mustang, help set them up during shoots, and drive them back after each weekend shoot. 

"Pretty much we had no life when we were shooting," she said. Yet she said she would not miss the chance to work for a project like that. "I would do it again in a heart beat," Rajagopalan said, adding that this was a great relief from her humdrum life. "How often does one get to be involved in something this creative and this much fun? I really cherish this involvement." 

Now the film is ready to premiere, and Saraf hopes when the audience has a chance to see it, it resonates with Silicon Valley Indian professionals. "I really like the film," he said with a bashful, self-conscious laugh. "I guess a mother always loves a child. I would be very flattered if others like it too." 

But his hopes are a bit more ambitious than that. 

"I wouldn`t mind if they came out a little disturbed and intrigued," he said. 

"I hope they come out thinking this is to some extent their story. 

"This is meant to be a thought-provoking film, and I would be disappointed if it was just seen as a light hearted comedy." 

Saraf has reason to be optimistic at least in terms of the interest generated. A recent story in the `San Jose Mercury News` generated 10,000 hits to their website. 

Interested readers can reach the website at www.shrieks.com/bugaboo. Those interesting in arranging screenings can call Lalitha Rajagopalan at ((408) 732-8546 or reach her by e-mail at lalitar@aol.com